Murder Case In Jeopardy

Abused Girl's Baby Possibly Stillborn

Pennsylvania's murder case against a former Boynton Beach man accused of killing a baby he fathered with his daughter appeared to be in jeopardy on Thursday because the infant may have been stillborn.

"We're going to have to prove that the child was born alive, and by his [Mendum Paul Corvin's) actions, he caused its death," Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck said on Thursday.

Peck said "there is some information that indicates" the baby may have been a breached birth, which is when the baby turns and is born feet first.

Such births are usually not a problem with medical intervention, but Corvin told police he delivered the baby girl himself and did not clear the baby's mouth to help her breathe.

Corvin, 61, confessed this week to fathering and later burying two of his daughter's babies, one in the family's back yard in Boynton Beach in 1968 and the other three years later in the cellar of the family's home in Scottdale, Pa., where he had moved with his three daughters.

The Florida case is stronger because the child's mother, Sharon Moore, now 39, said her father tried to drown the baby in the bathtub and when that didn't work, he buried the baby alive, sources said.

This could be used as direct testimonial evidence for premediated, first-degree murder, the sources said.

Police in both states have found skeletal remains of infants in the places that Moore and Corvin indicated. On Thursday, police finished digging at the Scottdale home, and their finds included two large bones, which appear to be leg bones and the pelvis. The skull was found, but not intact.

Westmoreland County deputy coroner Joseph Musgrove confirmed on Thursday that they were human bones.

Peck said he did not feel comfortable saying where the information about the breach birth comes from or whether it would hinder prosecution of the case.

"I don't know that at this point it is something we recognize as a significant problem," Peck said. "We are still in such an early stage, we haven't talked to the principal witnesses in this case."

Corvin's preliminary hearing on a criminal homicide charge in the Pennsylvania case is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on May 10 in Scottdale district court.

He is being held without bail at Westmoreland County Detention Center. Jail officials there have placed Corvin on suicide watch. He had been refusing to take heart medication, and when he was first brought to the jail, he told guards he wanted to die.

Moore, a bartender in Boynton Beach, triggered both investigations on Saturday when she came forward more than 25 years after the baby's deaths and told police her family secret of incest and murder.

During questioning by Boynton Beach police Detective Jim Mahoney on Tuesday night, Corvin said he killed the first baby rather than face prosecution for rape and incest.

"He said that his daughter took the place of his wife, who was always working and never home," Mahoney said.

Corvin also said he molested - but did not rape - his two younger daughters.

"Sharon, being the oldest, would stop Mr. Corvin from having relations with the other two daughters," Mahoney said.

Corvin told Mahoney that if Sharon resisted him, he told her he would go after one of her sisters, Mahoney said.